Robert Altenkirch

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Dr. Robert Altenkirch is the President of New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) in Newark, New Jersey, USA. He was inaugurated on May 2, 2003.

Robert A. Altenkirch, Ph.D., formerly vice president for research at Mississippi State University (MSU), joined New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) as the university's seventh president in July 2002. During his tenure as MSU vice president for research, science and engineering, expenditures as reported to National Science Foundation (NSF) increased dramatically--75 percent from 1997 to 2001.

Prior to his appointment as vice president at MSU, Altenkirch served as professor of mechanical and materials engineering and dean of the College of Engineering and Architecture at Washington State University. From 1988 to 1995, he was professor of mechanical engineering and dean of the College of Engineering at MSU. He also served as professor and chair of mechanical engineering at the University of Kentucky.

In addition to the research program, his responsibilities encompassed congressional relations, intellectual property management and economic development. While dean of engineering at MSU, he led the effort to secure National Science Foundation funding for the establishment of the MSU NSF Engineering Research Center for Computational Field Simulation in 1990. Additionally, the Center was instrumental in helping the State of Mississippi attract a $1 billion Nissan manufacturing plant now under construction.

Altenkirch holds a Ph.D. from Purdue University, an M.S. from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.S.M.E. from Purdue, all in mechanical engineering. He is the author of over 50 publications and nearly 100 presentations in combustion and heat transfer and served as principal investigator for ten Space Shuttle experiments investigating the spread of fire in reduced gravity. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.